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Eighth Colombian reporter killed this year

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed a reporter in a war zone in southern Colombia on Wednesday in the eighth murder of a working journalist in the country this year, authorities said.

Police said two pistol-toting assailants pumped four rounds from close range into Alfredo Abad, 36, as he drove off from his home for work in the southwestern city of Florencia.

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Abad died instantly. He was the director of an affiliate of the Caracol radio news network in Florencia and also ran a local television news program.

He was the second journalist killed since November 30 in the city of 200,000 people, the capital of Caqueta province.

Police and colleagues said there were no immediate clues to the identity of the gunmen, who sped off after the killing.

Florencia, where killings are commonplace, is a site of frequent clashes between right-wing paramilitary gunmen and urban commandos of Colombia's main Marxist rebel group.

The city is the largest population center bordering an area of jungle and savanna the size of Switzerland that the government has declared off-limits to security forces since November 1998.

The aim was to create a venue for so-far fruitless peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the hemisphere's largest and oldest insurgency.

Press watchdogs have long ranked Colombia as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.

Over the last 20 years, more than 100 reporters have died covering the Andean nation's drug wars and long-running civil conflict, which pits two leading rebel groups against ultra-right militias and the armed forces.

Last year, six Colombian journalists were killed for their work and at least 13 fled the country after receiving death threats, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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U.S. State Dept. Fact Sheet: Plan Colombia
United States Institute of Peace Library, Plan Colombia Information
Drug Enforcement Administration
  • Traffickers from Colombia
Presidencia de la Republica de Colombia (Spanish)
Center for International Policy Latin America Demilitarization Program
  • Report on United Self-Defense Groups of Columbia
Transnational Institute Drugs & Democracy Project
U.S. State Department: 1999 Human Rights Report for Colombia
Human Rights Watch Report on Columbia

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